Letter to Judge Fitzgerald

May 22, 2011
 
Judge Robert Fitzgerald
Superior Court, County of Orange, Dept. # C-5
Central Justice Center
 
RE:  Sentencing of J B, Case 09NF1375
 
Your Honor,
 
My name is Eric Christensen and I am the father of Miles Andrew Christensen.   JB was before your court on November 19, 2010 for sentencing following his guilty plea in the deaths of both my son and Jackie Ardalan on May 11, 2009.  You sentenced JB to two concurrent one year sentences in County Jail.  Of this sentence, 90 days were removed for his time in Chino State Prison, and an additional 15% of the term would be removed following “good behavior” while incarcerated.  I now understand that the County Jail is considering some type of work release program where the punishment aspect of his sentence will be all but removed. 
 
I do not know if you have any ability to intervene in this matter.  If you do, I am asking if you will on behalf of Miles, Jackie, me and their families.  This letter began following the November 2010 sentencing and I have held off on writing to you in order to try and gain some perspective on your sentence.  It is now necessary to finish the letter.
 
I must tell you that your sentence created the second worst day in my life – surpassed only by May 11, 2009 when my son was killed by JB.  I had been reading about drunk driving accidents and fatalities among young people in Orange County for years prior to my son’s death, going so far as to clip articles and talk to both of my sons about the risks that were very real and present for their age.  Among these articles were ones about the sentences handed down to the people convicted.  The sentencing seemed unusually consistent when there was a fatality involving a passenger who also had alcohol in their system.  I am sure you know that a six year sentence in state prison was what I read for these types of drunk driving fatalities.  Six years for killing one or two friends.  It felt at the time like a light sentence when I read these as a curious citizen.  You can imagine my feelings when my own son was killed under similar circumstances and I considered how cheap three years for his life would be as a sentence to his killer. 
 
Unfortunately, I was aware of the budget constraints our state was facing, the upheaval in the penal system administration; and sadly, your sentencing history found in an internet search.  I was therefore resigned to hearing this lighter option of a sentence on November 19th.  As a parent, I was not out for blood vengeance, and understood the reasons for our justice systems gradations of criminal homicide.  I was anticipating justice within this context but never – never within a million years – was I prepared to hear your sentence of two years in County Jail.  My son’s life in the eyes of society, represented by your office, became worth less in time meted out than the time his mother was pregnant with him 20 years before.  The statistics for sentencing following any drunk driving homicide that year are beyond my research, but I cannot believe that your sentence fell within even the first deviation from the norm. 
 
My feeling following your sentence was as if my son was killed again.  The competing feelings of numbness and outrage have never really gone far below the surface in the past seven months.  This is your sentence on my life.  My way of coping with them today following the shocking news of a partial release for JB is to ask you to try and rectify what I believe was your far too lenient sentence by intervening in the Jail’s entertaining of this further insult to Jackie’s and Miles’ lives.  I can summarize the reasons for my request with the following:
 
Lack of Remorse
My parenting skills can rightfully be called into question but I did raise my sons to understand that true sorrow involves an expression of regret to the one wronged.  Sorrow – or repentance – is normally manifested in the turning from the wrong based on a heartfelt recognition of your wrong.  JB has yet to send any form of communication to me regarding his regret at killing Miles.  Not a text, email, letter, card, call or request to talk to me regarding his regret.  Not in the year and a half prior to sentencing or the seven months following.  If his attorney told him not to contact me, then that should be a decision he lives with in his unexpressed thoughts.  But he should not be able to credibly tell you that he has sorrow over something he never expressed to me – or Jackie’s parents.  He did not utter a word of sorrow at his sentencing, so you can imagine how shocked I was to hear you mention this as some type of mitigating factor in his sentence.  There is an expression in business that unexpressed competence is assumed incompetence.  I cannot judge JB’s heart – but I can judge the lack of any expression of remorse from him to me. 
 
Additionally, I understand that the injuries causing my son’s death are more consistent with his being hit as a pedestrian – not a passenger.  JB knows the true story of that night.  He knows if the police are right in their suspicion that there was another driver racing him.  His lack of cooperation in settling this issue screams a lack of remorse.  The limited punishment he has should not be abbreviated anymore by a work release that would effectively chop this first leg holding up the sentence.
 
Safety for Society
I was never given any information regarding alcohol or substance abuse education/treatment Berggren underwent/attended during the interim of the crash and his incarceration.  I understand that attendance at AA meetings and other resources to understand addiction are voluntary in prison.  I am old enough to understand that a lack of understanding our failures is an excellent harbinger of our future to repeat the mistakes – no matter how much we may intend to never repeat them.  Since I have no knowledge of JB’s remorse, or his availing himself of chemical dependency resources, I have to assume that he will be a time bomb waiting to explode again in reckless driving and further alcohol abuse.  A lack of attendance at any type of sober living program speaks of a lack of introspection and remorse regarding his actions. 
 
The Multiple Offender Alcohol Program requirement of his parole only indicates a future action that unfortunately has less than stellar outcomes.  Based on the lack of deterrent programing he accessed before sentencing, there is no more predictability that society will be safe from him than there was prior to his killing Miles and Jackie.  This is a second reason for my asking you to intervene on the Jail’s consideration of him for work release.
 
Deterrent for Society
A portion of every sentence is supposed to act as a deterrent to anyone in society who may be contemplating a similar criminal act.  This third leg holding up the platform of a sentence was severely shortened on November 19, 2011.  The County Jail system is now wishing to sand down the remaining stump, leaving the sentence as nothing more than a trip stone on the floor of justice. 
 
I cannot pretend to remember when I turned the corner on the false assumption of youth that I was immune from the consequences of stupid actions.  Nor can I honestly say that the original intention of a 13 year sentence would have prevented other young people from acting in as reckless a manner as JB.  But I know that it pains me when I wonder if it would have prevented any of the ongoing drunk and reckless driving accidents plaguing our county.  I am certain that the contemplated reduction of his already light sentence will do more harm. 
 
Please consider acting on my request and somehow correcting what I consider to have been a great wrong in your sentencing November 19, 2010.  I wrote the following to you in the Victim Impact Statement.  It rings even more loudly now as my plea to you:
 
Your Honor, I ask you to consider the weight of two lives taken in your sentencing.  I believe they demand more balance in our justice system than the feather of no jail time, or the pebbles of a smaller sentence that can be reduced to 1.5 years per life through our prison system.  Even the sentence recommended by the district attorney will have Jared out of jail at a younger age than I was when Miles was born. 
​
I am now urging you to intervene in order to extend the period of jail time to that only of the time his mother was pregnant with him.  You already took away what had seemed like an absurdly short period of 1.5 years for each life taken.